


Older than human thought, and older

by thepalewalker



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: #hobb's not locke's take, #idkman just read it, #its weird, #okay, #surreal, #the Bat is society, #the child is kind of the personification of the State of Nature, #unbetaed, #very philisophical, #very surreal, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 00:13:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17131358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepalewalker/pseuds/thepalewalker
Summary: The Clown and the Batman reflect a larger conflict.((i think too much))





	Older than human thought, and older

**Author's Note:**

> ((i dont know what this is im feeling sad if you ever want more of this tell me and if i make a grammar mistake, tell me))

It was incredibly dark. The Bat consumed everything. Bruce Wayne was being consumed from the inside out, while the Bat nested within him. Its claws ripped and scraped at the inside of Bruce’s rib cage. When Bruce had first agreed to host it, he thought he had enough meat on his bones to keep it fed until he was killed in some other fashion. But now, he was growing thin. And weak. And he feared if he let the inevitable reach him in good time and the Bat fully devoured him, tearing him apart like a deflated balloon, he would be gone too quickly to complete his purpose.

The Bat did spend a good amount of time clawing out the matter in Bruce’s skull, so it made sense that the face would be the first to go. Whatever it took to keep the Bat alive and well was worth loosing.

Plastic would do to replace his outside visible self. People pretended not to notice when he first showed up with a fake face, and Bruce thought that was very considerate of them. They were so nice to let him think that they accepted him as human still. This was why he continued to protect them,

His muscles were next on the menu. After they left, the Bat had to hold up Bruce’s body for him and force him to walk where it wanted him to go. The crowds pretended not to notice how stiff and unnatural he looked as he walked about at parties in his stiff suits and ties. They pretended not to notice how every moment, he shivered and tensed as if the Bat was primed to burst out from his skin at any moment. This was quite polite of them.

His stomach followed soon after. Now, it was only the Bat that continued to sustain Bruce Wayne’s existence. The Bat fed him and kept him alive as it consumed him, to draw out his meaningless existence just that much longer. People pretended not to notice how little he could survive out in the open, on his own.

His breath was stolen after that. His lungs were snatched up in the Bat’s jaws, sucked up like jelly, and swallowed briskly. Everything that animated him was now fuel for the Bat’s ever expanding self. If Bruce thought about it, he could almost feel his skin ripping around the increasing pressure. He was being worn like a shirt that was far too small, and whenever Bruce spoke, he worried that the blonde doll that nodded at and giggled with him was secretly hiding her horror at the blood and liquid shadow that was being forced out of Bruce’s every pore.

But Bruce didn’t need to think for much longer, because his brain was finally licked clean off of the inside of his skull.

And Bruce Wayne was gone. Although Bruce had feared this outcome, he hadn’t realized how useful his face was to the Bat. So, the Bat fully cast off its old host, taking only Bruce’s plastic face as a prize of conquest and a tool for further campaigns.

_____

And one day, while the Bat stalked through the crowds of common men, he suddenly heard a voice.

“You look silly. Your mask barely covers your face!”

He turned to see a child, with tangled hair that had never been cut, ears that had never been washed, and a face that looked like something in between a madman and a saint.

“It serves my purposes,” the Bat rumbled. He did not question why he, a being as great and old as human thought, would speak to someone so seemingly young and naive.

The little clown snorted indignantly. “Not very well.”

“Tiny children can see past my mask, and mob bosses can’t. You’re right, I should get that fixed.” 

The child laughed, a tinkling laugh that others might have called charming, but scraped through the Bat’s ears like a dull cheese grater. “’M not tiny. I’m older than you. I’m just not boring like you.”

The Bat turned the fullness of his dark, empty eyes upon the child. “I am not boring. I am necessary.”

The child entertained himself by staring at his own feet as he traced a crack in the floor with his steps. “No. I’ve lived my whole life without needing you.”

This was true, and it gave the Bat pause. If he was necessary, how could this child even exist? 

The little clown stopped in his tottering travels to give a pointed stare to his companion. “But you need me. I don’t see how you keep forgetting that.”

With a snort, the Bat took a few steps in order to be nearer to the child. “And why is that?”

“How would you know what you were without me? But, don’t worry. It’s not because I’m special. I just came first, and because people are so ungrateful, they decided they wanted the greener grass.”

“Well, if they all chose me over you, don’t you think that says something about you?” The Bat grinned in a self-satisfied manner.

The child blinked up at him innocently. “Doesn’t it say something about solid ground that lemmings throw themselves in the sea to get away from it?”

“Lemmings don’t actually do that.”

“Off topic.” The child plopped himself onto the ground, his greasy hair falling over his paint-smeared face, and the Bat slowly sunk down in a crouched position, like some great gargoyle, beside him.

“Animals don’t naturally have suicidal tendencies,” the beast muttered defeatedly.

And the boy shrugged. “Humans do.” He leaned over and gave the Bat a light poke with his elbow, giggling. “Because they think like you!”

“They have those tendencies because of many different factors. Mental disorders. Outside sources. Working conditions. Relationships--”

The child blew a sharp raspberry into the Bat’s face, who recoiled slightly. Then, the boy waved his arms slightly. “It’s you! You made them all stupid and worry-y.”

“Worry-y isn’t a word.”

A soft sigh escaped the child’s lips as his gaze sunk to the ground. “They wouldn’t care about that if they just stuck with me.” The slight tinge of regret in the child’s voice seemed unnatural and out of place.

“Sometimes, through enlightenment, we stumble across truths that we don’t like,” the Bat replied slowly.

“If it makes people sad, why do they do it? What does enlight--… enlightenment… get them? Whether or not I know how many cows could fit inside Jupiter, I can still enjoy the sun and the rain.”

“It helps them conduct themselves rightly. If someone believes there is good and evil, he will most likely seek to be good.”

“But what if there isn’t good? Or evil?”

“Then, humans are nothing more than animals.”

The child tilted his head much like a curious dog. “Isn’t that what we are?”

The Bat paused, laying his claws across his plastic mask for a moment. “We need to be more.”

“Why?”

“Because we can. Animals can’t.”

The child pouted. “That’s a dumb answer. I can jump off of a roof and break my legs, Timmy in a wheelchair can’t. Doesn’t mean I should.”

The Bat was gathering another answer when the child suddenly flopped onto his lap.

“Tired of thinking. I’m going to sleep now.”

The Bat grumbled slightly, shifting as if he would dump his precious cargo off at any moment.

“I was doing something important before I started talking to you.”

The child allowed his eyes to flicker shut. “Nothing as important as this.”

The child nestled into the Bat’s care. The Child consumed everything. It had been consuming the Bat, from the moment of the creature’s conception. Now, the Bat had been a shambling corpse for many years now, only held up by the fear of what was waiting beneath the fragile facade of strength the meticulous creature maintained. The Bat would eventually burst.

It would be like taking a pin to a balloon. 

_____

 

The truth was that no one ever wanted the Child to truly return. Not even those agents of chaos who saw the being so appealing. Although the Child had existed before the Bat, no one had been able to recognized exactly what it was before the Bat had been dreamed up. The status quo had been madness, so men rebelled into sanity, because they could. Now, sanity was madness to the wisest of them, and they wanted to return to the darkness from which they returned. It was not a matter of right and wrong, but rather Man’s insatiable desire for the novel.

The Batman had been formed by the madness of Gotham, and in turn, fought against his source. The Joker had been shaped by the sanity of the world, and thus did everything he could to rip it up from the roots.

They were wrong. They were both somewhat right.

Neither would win. All one could do was swing up the pendulum for some time before the next generation dragged it all the way to the other side.


End file.
